2. What Triggered the Great Migration?
• Poverty in Britain
– People left Britain for economic reasons
– The Industrial Revolution caused machines to
replace people
– The end of the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815
causing an economic slowdown which led to more
unemployment
– Large landowners were buying all the land
– A famine hit Ireland in 1840, causing lots of
people to leave
3. Opportunity in the Colonies
• There was lots of room in British North America
• Britain started to encourage people to emigrate
in order to relieve the economic troubles
• Emigration – leaving one’s country to establish
citizenship and a home in another country (going
to a new place to live)
• Immigration – the process of people establishing
homes and citizenship in a country that is not
their native country (coming to a new place to
live)
4. What Impacts Did the Great Migration
Have?
• More Farms
– New wave of colonists created pressure in BNA
– This pressure was caused by worry over where
these people would settle
• More British People
– With the economic depression many British
people emigrated to BNA
5. GO TO PAGE 204
• Read “History Happens – Not a Pleasure
Cruise”
6. The Push for Democracy: What did
Reformers Want?
• Reformers wanted to change the government
of BNA
• The reformers wanted complete authority to
make the decisions that affected their own
lives
• Reformer – someone who wants to change
(reform) established rules and arrangements
in society
7. Who had power in British North
America?
• In BNA they had colonial government
– Colonial Government – a government established in a
colony and controlled by an imperial power such as Britain
• Basically, colonial government is when a colony is stilled ruled by
the country that colonized them
• By having a colonial government, Britain would appoint
the people to make decisions in the colonies, such as a
governor of each colony
• Each colony did have an elected assembly; however
they did not have as much power as the governor –
they could not make decisions for the colony, only
advise the governor
8. Who Has Power in a Democracy?
• Voters elect the people who have the authority to
make decisions
• This means the voters have the power because
they choose the decision makers who reflect their
values and attitudes
• This is what the reformers wanted in BNA
– Reformers wanted and elected assemblies of the
colonies to control the councils instead of the British
appointed governors
– They wanted the council to have full control of the
local affairs
9. The Rebellions of 1837 and 1838
The Situation in Lower Canada
• A struggle of power developed between the
elected assembly and the governor
• The cultural division fueled the struggle
because Anglophone (English), Protestant
people controlled the council and
Francophone (French), Catholic Canadiens
made up a majority of the assembly
10. • The “Chateau Clique” – wealthy English merchants –
held power in the councils appointed by the
governor
– The governor always appointed members of this
group to the councils
• People started to seek a more democratic
government in the 1820s
• Fighting broke out between Canadien and English-
speaking voters
• When the cholera epidemic broke out in Quebec, the
people blamed the British government
• A harsh winter brought about a lot of crop failures in
Lower Canada (mostly to the Canadiens) and in 1837
a lot of farmers faced starvation
11. The Rebellions of 1837 and 1838
The Situation in Upper Canada
• They also had developed a power struggle between
the council and the assembly
• Most members of the “Family Compact” – wealthy
English Canadians – held power in councils
appointed by the governor
• The reform party wanted a democratic government
and won a majority of seats in the elected assembly
in 1834
• In 1836 the governor made sure that the reform
party did not win the election, instead the party he
favored did
• In 1837, crop failures also affected Upper Canada
12. Who Were the Reformers?
• There were three main outspoken reformers
that emerged in BNA
– Louis-Joseph Papineau from Lower Canada
– William Lyon Mackenzie from Upper Canada
– Joseph Howe from Nova Scotia
• All these men were members of the elected
assemblies in their colonies and were not
happy with the way things were
15. The Durham Report
• The British had to use violence to put down all
the rebellions that were taking place
• Britain decided to investigate the rebellions
– They did not want to lose Upper and Lower Canada
like they lost the Thirteen Colonies
– This investigation was to help them find a peaceful
solution
• Britain set up a royal commission in 1838 to study
Upper and Lower Canada
– The man in charge of this commission was Lord
Durham
16. Durham’s Recommendations
• Recommendation #1 – Union of Upper and Lower
Canada
– Making the people of Lower Canada be ruled by the
English majority
– Forming a legislative union made up of people from
Upper Canada and Lower Canada
• Recommendation #2 – More Democratic
Government
– Give more power to the colonies
– This would cause the people of Upper and Lower
Canada to cooperate for a common purpose
17. • Recommendation #3 – Assimilate the
Canadiens
– Durham didn’t believe the Canadiens had a history
worth protecting
19. The Act of the Union
• Britain passed the Act of Union in 1841 in
response to the recommendations made in
the Durham Report
• The Act of Union focused on recommendation
number three: assimilate the Canadiens
– Assimilate – to become a part of a different
cultural group (the French becoming English
essentially)
20. What the Act Did
• The Act of Union:
– Combined Upper and Lower Canada into a single
province: The province of Canada
– Created a legislative council appointed by the
governor
– Created an assembly with equal representatives
from Canada West (Upper Canada) and Canada
East (Lower Canada)
– Made English the official language of government
in the new Province of Canada
21. Pressures the First Nations Faced in
1840
• The Mississauga Nation (Anishinabee people)
had to decide whether or not to relocate
• British settlers had moved onto their lands
– This is where present day Toronto is now
• This prevented the Mississauga people to
move through their lands with the changing of
the season like they traditionally have done
• The Mississauga people ended up taking up
farming in order to survive
22. • The Mississauga Nation petitioned Britain for
the right to own their settlement and farms
under British Law, in response, Britain
proposed moving them to Manitoulin Island
– This was a rocky island that British farmers did not
want
• The Mississauga people rejected this because
they would not be able to survive there
• In 1847 the people of the Mississauga Nation
moved onto land that the Haudenosaunee
people offered them at Grand River.
